


Lonely Has Always Had Time For Me

by destinyjoy_xoxo



Category: Drake & Josh
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Depression, No Incest, No Smut, Self Harm, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 18:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18762166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinyjoy_xoxo/pseuds/destinyjoy_xoxo
Summary: Josh is done with Drake and now Drake has no one. How does Drake cope with the loneliness?Please read tags for trigger warnings!





	Lonely Has Always Had Time For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please read the tags for the trigger warnings! 
> 
> Shoutout to my best friend for proof-reading this and helping me improve it. You’re the best! ♥️

“I guess someone’s a little upset he doesn’t have a brother anymore” Megan’s words kept bouncing around in Drake’s head like a broken record. No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop hearing them. He’d denied it, of course he had. Josh needed him way more than he needed Josh. That was his story and he was sticking to it, even if he didn’t believe it himself. 

He didn’t understand why this was bothering him so much. Three years ago, he wouldn’t have minded if Josh didn’t want anything to do with him, in fact, he would’ve preferred it. He never wanted Josh to be a part of his life so why was he feeling this overwhelming loneliness now that he was gone? 

It’s not like Drake was a stranger to being loneliness. If there was one thing Drake knew how to deal with, it was loneliness. He’d been lonely since he was 9 years old and his dad decided that he couldn’t handle having a family and left him, his mom and Megan all alone. 

Drake had stepped up, as best as he could at his age, and helped his mom in any way he could. He watched out for his little sister, made sure he kept his toys in his room and he ate all of his vegetables without complaint. The last thing he wanted was to make his mom angry. He didn’t want her to leave him too. 

He’d never been good at making friends. Most of the kids in his class were mean to him, picked on him and called him names. He really didn’t care though, he had his mom, his little sister and his guitar and that was all he needed, all he’d ever really known. 

So yeah, Drake could handle feeling lonely but he soon realized that he wasn’t suffering from loneliness. He wasn’t just alone, he was empty. It was a feeling wasn’t used to, one he hadn’t had in three years. He had never even realized just how empty inside he was until his mom had remarried. 

Drake hated Walter at first. Everything changed when he started dating his mom. He was always at the house, taking Drake’s spot at the dinner table, taking the remote to the tv, taking Drake’s mom away from him. Even Megan started pulling away from Drake, distancing herself from her family. To make it even worse, every time Walter came over, he brought his annoying, loser of a son, Josh, with him. 

Josh was everything Drake hated. He was loud and obnoxious and really fucking clingy. But if Drake was honest with himself, he never hated Josh. In fact, he was kind of jealous of him. Sure, Josh was a dork with some lame hobbies, but at least he knew who he was and he owned it. He never tried to be anything he wasn’t. Josh was unapologetically himself and he had people who loved him for it. Drake was jealous of that most of all. 

Drake warmed up to Josh pretty quick, secretly happy to have someone so desperate to be his friend and to impress him. He was so used to it being the other way around. Josh made him feel wanted, important. And most of all, he made him feel loved. 

He didn’t feel that way anymore. Now he just felt abandoned, tossed aside. Useless. 

Drake was jarred from his thoughts at the sound of his mom calling him downstairs for dinner. He let out a heavy sigh as he gently placed his guitar on his mattress. He jumped down from his bed and hesitantly walked downstairs to the dining room. He stopped when got to the bottom of the stairs, his eyes scanning the room. He froze when he saw some guy he didn’t recognize sitting beside Josh on the couch, laughing like he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. Drake felt like he was gonna throw up. He forced himself to look away, his eyes landing on Megan who was sitting on the floor, flipping through a magazine. He found his mom and Walter next, standing in the kitchen, making plates of food for everyone. 

No one had noticed him standing there yet, not that he was surprised. No one really paid attention to him unless he was getting into trouble. It was as if he didn’t exist. He was completely invisible, unloved, unwanted, unimportant. Drake blinked back the tears that were forming in his eyes and quickly ran back upstairs before anyone saw him. 

Drake ran into the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind him. He turned the shower on and then sank down in front of the tub, drawing his knees up to his chest. 

A thousand different thoughts were going through his mind but the main one he was focusing on, the one that he couldn’t shake was the fact that Josh had replaced him; again. He suddenly felt like it was two years ago when Josh had found a new, better version of Drake after Drake asked for one night to himself. He remembered how awful and invaluable he’d felt watching Josh hang out with Drew day after day but that was nothing compared to how he felt now. 

He took in a couple of shaky breaths before he finally broke down, his whole body shaking with the force of his sobs. He calmed down after a few minutes, wiping the tears off of his face with his shirt. He made no effort to get off of the floor, despite how uncomfortable he was. He absentmindedly picked at a loose thread on his shorts, trying to think about absolutely anything else other than how alone and pathetic he was.

His fingers froze when he accidentally pushed his shorts up his thigh, his eyes falling on the old, faded scars on his skin. He swallowed thickly, his fingertips moving to ghost over the scars, as if moving on autopilot. He hadn’t cut in years, hadn’t felt the need to since Josh came into his life but now the urge was back and stronger than ever before. He needed to feel the pain, needed to feel something, anything. 

He stood up and slowly opened the cabinet above the sink, making sure he didn’t catch a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. The last thing he wanted to see right now was himself. He grabbed his razor and sat back down in front of the tub, his stomach twisting with nerves and a bit of excitement. 

His fingers trembled as he carefully popped the blade out of his razor. He barely registered the sound of the plastic clattering to the floor as he pressed the cold metal against his thigh, directly above one of his healed cuts. He closed his eyes and took in a breath as he slowly dragged the blade across his skin. He exhaled shakily and slowly opened his eyes, watching in fascination as his blood slowly trailed down his leg and dripped onto the shiny white tiled floor. 

He smiled for the first time in days as he dragged the blade across his skin, over and over again, relishing in the delicious sting. He stopped after four more cuts but made no move to get up and clean himself off. He just sat there and watched as the blood poured from his wounds, trying to remember the last time he felt so alive. 

He jumped when he heard Josh coming up the stairs and he quickly jumped up, picking up his razor and the bloodied blade. He threw the razor in the trash but kept the blade, carefully washing it off before slipping it into his pocket. He gingerly washed his leg and put a bandage on his cuts to stop the bleeding before he quickly wiped the blood off of the floor. At the last minute he remembered to duck his head under the still running shower, not wanting to leave any room for questions or doubt on what he was doing. Not that he thought Josh cared about him or what he was doing in the bathroom, but still- it didn’t hurt to be prepared. He turned the shower off and towel dried his hair so that it wasn’t dripping before he headed towards the door. He hesitated for just a second and then slowly walked out and down the hall to his bedroom. 

He turned the knob and opened the door, quietly walking inside. He opened his mouth to say something, anything to break the awkward silence but changed his mind when he saw Josh glance up at him and then quickly look away. He stifled a sigh as he padded over to his dresser, changing into his pajamas as quickly and as quietly as he could before he climbed into bed. 

“Goodnight, Josh” he mumbled before he rolled over. He didn’t get a response back, he didn’t expect one but he still had a small glimmer of hope that he could at least get one word out of him. He closed his eyes before more tears could start falling, absentmindedly scratching at his wrist until it was raw, letting the repetitive motion and the ache in his chest put him to sleep. 

Life continued on in the same way for another two weeks before Drake couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t handle the deafening silence every time he was around Josh, he couldn’t handle being so alone all the time. His thighs couldn’t take anymore cuts. Everything in his life was falling apart and he had to do something about it. 

He hadn’t meant for everything to come to a head while he was dripping wet in his chemistry classroom but that was what happened. He had a completely humiliating breakdown in front of everyone, basically begging Josh to forgive him, to let him back into his life. A tiny part of him thought he’d gotten through to Josh but it disappeared as soon as he heard him tell the teacher that he didn’t want to speak with him. Josh still hated him. Nothing changed. 

All that happened as a result of his breakdown was that he was now the laughing stock of the school. The story had spread like wildfire, the great Drake Parker had sobbed like a fucking baby and admitted to actually needing his brother in his life. He was a fucking joke now. The girls that usually fawned all over him in the halls now snickered and giggled to their friends when they walked by. Not that he really cared, he didn’t have the energy to keep up with his player image anymore. That wasn’t really who he was anyways, despite what people thought. 

‘I can’t live like this anymore’ Drake thought as he walked through the halls, keeping his head down as low as possible. He ducked into the bathroom, hiding himself in a stall until he heard the late bell ring. He waited a few more minutes, just to make sure the hallways would be empty before he made a run for it, sneaking out of the backdoor. 

He ran all the way home, the burning in his lungs and the ache in his legs making him feel alive. He let out a breath of relief when he saw that no one was home. At least something went right for him for once. He unlocked the front door and quickly went upstairs to his bedroom. He sat down at his desk and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, his hands shaking with the thought of what he was about to do. There was so much he wanted to write, so much he wanted to get off of his chest but all he could manage to write was ‘I’m sorry’ and really, it was perfect. It summed up his entire existence- sorry, pathetic, useless. A waste of space. He folded the paper, addressed it to his whole family and placed it on Josh’s bed. 

He went into the bathroom, staring at his reflection for a few minutes. He looked like pure shit. He had bags under his eyes, his skin was pale and dry. His hair was oily and looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days. He tore his eyes away from the mirror, not able to look at himself any longer. He reached into his pocket and slowly pulled out the blade, twisting it between his fingers before he pressed it to his wrist. One vertical cut along his vein is all it would take. It would all be over. But then he thought about the aftermath of his actions. He thought about his mom or Megan walking in and finding him in a pool of his own blood and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want them to be scarred with that image, he also didn’t want them to be responsible for cleaning up the mess. 

He put the blade back into his pocket and opened up the medicine cabinet, grabbing the bottle of pain killers, nearly dropping them due to his shaking hands He dumped the pills in his hands, filled up the now empty bottle with water and quickly swallowed the pills before he could change his mind, washing them down with the cold water. He placed the bottle on the counter, wiped up the water droplets on the sink and then slowly walked back to his room. He climbed up the ladder to his bed and laid down on his back, placing his hands on his stomach as he waited for the pills to do their job. 

Drake woke up to an extremely harsh bright light and an obnoxious beeping in his ears. He groaned quietly and slowly blinked his eyes open, jumping a bit when he saw his entire family staring down at him. He could tell his mom and Megan had been crying, Walter looked like he was just barely keeping it together but Josh looked.. horrible. His hair was a mess, his eyes were red rimmed and swollen and he just looked so exhausted. Drake was confused for a few moments, unsure of where he was before it all came back to him- the loneliness, the self hatred, the pills.

‘Of course the fucking pills didn’t work’ Drake thought bitterly as he turned his gaze to the ceiling, not wanting to look at his family anymore

‘I can’t even fucking kill myself correctly’.

He heard the nurse come in and ask everyone to leave for a moment so she could check his vitals or some shit, Drake didn’t really know and he didn’t care. He was just glad she was making everyone leave. 

He didn’t understand why they were there anyways. It’s not like they cared about him, they had proven that time and time again. Drake didn’t matter to anyone. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the nurse had left and Josh had come back into the room alone. He glanced over at him and shook his head 

“You don’t have to be in here. You don’t have to pretend you care, okay? You should’ve just let me die” he muttered

Josh opened his mouth to say   
something but then changed his mind, shaking his head. He pulled up a chair and sat down beside Drake’s bed, watching him closely 

“Why, Drake? Why did you do this?” He asked, his voice hoarse and quiet. Drake stared at him for a moment, debating on if he should even try to explain himself. He decided that he wanted to, he was tired of holding himself back for everyone else. He wanted someone to listen to him for a change. 

“You wanna know why, Josh? Fine. I’ll tell you why. I did it because I’m tired of living this shitty life. I’m tired of being alone, I’m tired of just existing. I don’t matter to anyone Josh, I never have. I just didn’t admit that to myself until recently—“

“What are you talking about?” Josh interrupted. “You have plenty of people that love you, Drake. You have tons of friends and your family and your band. Not to mention all of the girls at school that would jump at the chance to be with you” 

Drake chuckled bitterly and shook his head before continuing 

“You’re wrong. I have no one Josh. No one needs me in their life. My dad left because he couldn’t handle having a family so I stepped up, you know? I helped mom with the house and Megan as best as I could but I was just a child myself. I grew up way too fast and because of that, I was never very good at making friends. Most people at school made fun of me anyways. I told myself it didn’t matter because I had my mom and my sister but I was lonely. So I turned to the guitar. It was all I had, it was really my only friend. People found out that I could play so they acted nice with me so they could be in our so called band. They only wanted to hang out with me because they could get something out of me” Drake stopped talking for a moment to take a breath and collect his thoughts but continued before Josh could interrupt. Drake needed to get this out. 

“And then mom met Walter. And they got married and I really wasn’t needed anymore. Mom didn’t need me to help with Megan or dinner or chores or anything, Megan was growing up and didn’t really want me around anyways. No one needed me or wanted me around. My whole life was turned upside down and I had no one to turn to. It was overwhelming, to say the least. I now had all of this free time and no responsibilities and I didn’t know what to do. So I acted out, I started getting in trouble as I’m sure you remember all too well. The Drake that you met isn’t really me, Josh. I’m not a player, I’m not some selfish jerk. I never meant to hurt those girls, you know? I just don’t know how to make a relationship work, all I know is people leaving. So I just make sure I leave before they can” 

He stopped talking again and took in a deep breath, blinking back the tears that were forming in his eyes. He glanced over at Josh and saw that he had tears falling down his cheeks as well. He was surprised to see that reaction but he didn’t let it deter him. He had to keep going. 

“So I was acting out a lot and dating all of these girls and it just seemed to work. People noticed me, they gave me attention, even if it was negative. And then you and I became close and it was just expected of me to keep up appearances. You were the smart, dependable one so I just played along with that. I never meant to get you into so much trouble, Josh. I never meant to ruin your life and drag you down. I hate that you and everyone thinks I’m some selfish, arrogant asshole because that’s not me. I’m just so scared of putting myself out there and getting hurt again. I always get hurt, Josh. People always leave and I just can’t take it anymore. So I decided to leave instead. If I’m gone then I can’t get hurt and I’m not here to ruin anyone else’s life. Everyone wins” he shrugged, picking at a thread on the thin hospital blanket that was draped across his lap. He’d put everything out in the open and now he just felt exposed and completely exhausted. 

He kept his gaze down until he heard Josh let out a sob. He glanced up at him, frowning when he saw how upset he was. 

“Please don’t cry for me, Josh. I’m not worth it” he sighed. 

Josh looked at Drake with wide, sad eyes, letting out another choked sob at his words

“Drake, god Drake, I’m so sorry. I had no idea, man. Drake, listen to me. You didn’t ruin my life, or anyone else’s. The day you came into my life and became my brother was the best day. I had always wanted a brother, you know? I grew up an only child and it was just me and my dad for a while after my mom died. Anyways, that’s not the point” he murmured, harshly wiping the tears off of his cheeks 

“The point is, I was so happy to have you in my life. You were...are the best brother I could ever ask for. Sure, you got me into some trouble but I never really cared that much, I mean you always got me out of it. Or at least tried to. You made my life fun and exciting. You made me feel like I wasn’t some dorky loser. I was so proud that I got to call you my brother. I still am” he said softly, hoping Drake knew how much he meant that 

“I overreacted that day about the exam, I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. I was just angry and I’m so sorry. I know you didn’t mean to make me late. And then when you apologized multiple times, I still treated you like shit” he muttered, beyond angry with himself 

“No, don’t do that. Don’t beat yourself up, Josh. I did deserve it. Your life is so much better without me, we’ve all seen that. We all know that I need you way more than you need me but that’s not your problem, okay? You don’t want anything to do with me and I understand. You don’t need to feel guilty or anything” Drake said and he meant it. He wasn’t trying to make Josh feel guilty for anything, the last thing he wanted was to drag Josh down to his pathetic level 

“Drake, that’s not true. I need you in my life too. These last few weeks without you have been awful. Sure, some things improved. My rash went away and I beat Helen at racket ball but that doesn’t matter. None of that mattered because every time something went right for me, I just wanted to share it with you. I need you, Drake, probably more than you need me. I’m so sorry you’ve felt so alone and that I wasn’t there for you. I should’ve been there. And I will be from now on, I promise” he said seriously, locking eyes with Drake. 

He had never been more serious about anything in his life. He was going to make sure that Drake never, ever felt like this again. He was going to be a better brother, he was going to be the brother that Drake needed and deserved.   
Drake looked at Josh for a few moments, letting the weight of the conversation sink in. He was quiet for a few more minutes and then a hesitant, small smile formed on his lips 

“Does this mean I can be part of your life again? Are we friends again?” Drake asked shyly, biting down on his lower lip

“Friends?” Josh asked incredulously and Drake felt his heart sink for a moment 

“Nah man, we’re brothers”


End file.
